


My Son Has a Stupid Name But I Wasn't There to Choose It

by Emmuzka



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Gen, Kid Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-27
Updated: 2015-06-27
Packaged: 2018-04-06 11:58:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4220895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emmuzka/pseuds/Emmuzka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steven Kane is ten years old when Patrick notices that his son is not good at hockey. Huh.</p>
            </blockquote>





	My Son Has a Stupid Name But I Wasn't There to Choose It

**Author's Note:**

> The title comes from the Sin Bin community's prompt, which requested uninvolved parenting. In the prompt it was suggested that Kaner wouldn't like his kid's name, but couldn't have done anything about it because he hadn't been there.

Steven Kane is ten years old when Patrick notices that his son is not good at hockey. Huh. At this age, kids should already understand the game and the talented skaters would get noticed. But his kid is just… Well. Not that great.

He and Steven are spending their bi-weekly Saturday together, and as usual, Patrick had taken Steven to play hockey. It’s their thing, a father and son –thing. And frankly, what else there’s to do with a kid, anyway? Patrick is brewing the idea of introducing Steven to Jonny, like, officially, so maybe after that they’ll do something else together, also. Like... mini golfing, or bowling. Something like that.

Of course Jonny knows about Steven. His son isn’t a secret. It’s just that so far, there hadn’t been other people around with their family days. Patrick just had never gotten to introduce a girlfriend or other friends to either Steven or his mom, Laura. 

Patrick watches as Steven skates around the rink and pushes the puck on ice. The kid is just skating, aimlessly. There is no intention, no game in his moves. 

Patrick tries to think when was the last time he saw his son play in his little league, but doesn’t come up with anything. He remembers better the club arranged family skates, though, for Christmas and other occasions. The cameramen loved catching him and Steven together on ice, both blond and curly haired with wide smiling mouths. 

The media loves the idea of Patrick being a dad. Patrick loves the idea, too, even when he isn’t what could be called a hands-on dad. Patrick Kane has always been able to proudly say that his son is well taken care of. Even when money had been tight at the beginning, his boy’s support money went first. He had never been late in paying child support and Laura never had to ask. When his contracts got better and then really, really better, he'd been able to secure his kid with everything he needed and more. He paid so much that his accountant and lawyer made a pact to inform Patrick that he really didn’t have to pay a set percentage of his total salary, what had been settled on court would be enough. But Patrick wanted to pay a lot. It wasn’t a hardship. He didn’t even see the missing money, really.

And hey, having a kid is great. Steven is great. Only he’d come in a bad time, and because Patrick and Laura were never together, he fell mostly on Laura’s responsibility. Patrick kind of regrets it that he wasn’t there when his kid was a baby, but if he’d dropped out from hockey then to play dad, he wouldn’t be here today, having the security to buy private ice time just like that.

He still meets with Steven regularly, had always. Two weekends every month, though usually it was just Saturdays. Patrick had wanted to take him for nights, too, make it a slumber party, but then Steven had woken up at nights and cried for his mommy and Patrick had really needed to sleep. And Laura was so much better at it anyway, so it is just the Saturdays, if he doesn’t have an away game. 

Patrick wants to think that he is involved in his son’s life. Steven isn’t an easy kid. He is active and tends to concentrate on wrong things, even when you really want him to pay attention to what you are saying this time. 

His school had sent Steven to tests, and Patrick had been angry when he’d heard about them only afterwards. Only that Steven went back to his class with an ADD diagnosis and Patrick hadn’t had the time for the parent-teacher meeting on that. But Steven got the help he needed and Patrick got to pay for it, so it went pretty well overall.

After another lackluster passing drill Patrick just has to ask. “So how’re you doing in your hockey team?” 

“Dad, I quit hockey last year.” Steven doesn’t say it with shame, just indifferent. 

“What? But… Why didn’t you say anything? Why didn’t your mom say anything?” Steven’s coach should have called him, damnit, if there had been any problems with other kids or something. You couldn’t let a child quit after his first setback. 

“I was never really serious with it, dad, so when it started to take time away from all other things, mom let me decide. So I quit.” Steven fiddles with his stick. Patrick knows the special line, that stick costs about three hundred dollars. Patrick thinks he got it for free.

“Um.” Steven not playing hockey is making Patrick more upset than he’d ever could have guessed. “But we skate almost every time.” 

“Yeah?” Steven makes it sound like a question. Like, _what else could we have done, then?_

“We could do something else, sometime?” Honestly, Patrick doesn’t want to do anything else. Fuck, why is he so disappointed when he hadn’t even noticed that his son wasn’t that good or that interested in hockey, anyway? It comes to Patrick that he doesn’t actually know what Steven is interested in, then. What ten year olds even do, besides go to school and play sports? He should know, he talks with his son. 

Patrick brings it up again after the skate, in the rink’s small cafeteria. It feels foolish, now, to buy the exact same sport drinks and treats that he’d bought after their skate for years. 

Steven doesn’t notice Patrick’s hesitation with their after skate routine, but greedily digs into his peanut chocolate muffin. Patrick is used to leading the conversation, so it’s a new things that Steven starts with what he has to say. 

“So you know your schedule yet?” 

Patrick opens his mouth to assure that of course he has time for their next meet, probably, but Steven continues. “Yes, I know your game schedule, we all do, but I’m thinking if you have something else? Because I might not have the time for our next meet?”

Patrick is taken by the surprise. He can’t remember that there ever would have been a time when Steven would have canceled, or that Laura would have cancelled their meeting for him. Maybe when he’d been sick or something? Steven is ten already, he has to have his own things, like birthday invitations and stuff. And only now is the first time that his son is cancelling on him. Had he ever missed out other things to meet his dad on Saturdays?

“Dad, it’s just… I remember that I was always so happy when you came to pick me up. When I was younger, I waited the whole previous day, and I woke up super early to wait for you to come. Maybe I believed that you would come more quickly if I stared waiting earlier, I don’t know.”

Patrick remembers how many times he’d had to cancel the same morning. He’d had some urgent meeting, or sometimes he’d been just too hungover to handle a kid. And he’d never rescheduled, either, just cancelled. God he feels like shit about it.

Steven’s voice had went lower, he was almost mumbling now. “You remember that I always had some drawing or craft for you, that I’d made at kindergarten or school? And you always took them and said they were the best.” 

Patrick remembers the drawings and kids crafts. He still has some of those, somewhere. Or maybe his mom has. “And that was the best part, not the skating. I wanted to go skating because you wanted to go skating. I wanted to skate because you’re my dad.”

Patrick schools his face to not to show what he really feels. His freaking kid is smarter than him. No way could he had talked about things like this when he was ten. 

“So in two weeks I have this thing and I’d really like to go…”

“Instead of meeting your dad, because just meeting your dad isn’t a thing anymore.” Fuck, he really doesn’t know his son anymore. Had he ever, really?

Steven doesn’t even look annoyed or angried because of Patrick’s assholish comment. Instead he looks worried. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it, and of course I want to meet you!” Steven is in a haste to try to make this better. His son is a little fixer, it seems like. “We can go skating, I don’t mind.”

And now Patrick feels like an asshole. Is he an asshole dad? He’d thought that he was a good one. Jonny had asked a lot about Steven, especially when they first started dating, but he’d somehow always thought that it was just Jonny being polite. But maybe it was Jonny wondering why he didn’t spend more time with his son, or even talk about him that much, either. 

“Oh honey, don’t feel bad. You have things that are important to you, of course I understand that. What was it that you wanted to do? Maybe your old man can do what you want, this time.” As of now on, Patrick will be a better person, for sure.

“Um, there will be an anime and manga conference in Chicago and I would like to go. I already talked with mom that my friend’s dad would take us.” 

Anime? The only anime Patrick had bumped into was the X-rated kind, but there has to be stuff suitable for kids, also. He’d have to look into it. “I could go with you? I would really like to see what you are into. And see that no-one sells you anything that's over PG.”

Steven grins at him, lips stained blue from his drink. Patrick grins back. He can do this. They could do things that they were both interested in. Maybe Patrick could free some more time to be with his son. Small steps. Like learning to walk.


End file.
